Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (Hong Shao Rou)

As we creep towards middle age, Bill and I try to be healthier and avoid eating too much meat. We’re no health nuts by any stretch of the imagination…we’d eat anything and everything if we didn’t have to worry about the threat of muffin tops. There are countless times when the two of us walk into a bakery or gourmet shop for the sole purpose of just going in to look. But Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (hong shao rou) is an exception!

So for most of our home-cooked meals these days, we try to stay pretty healthy–lots of veggies. But today, thanks to viewers like you, we’re having pork for dinner (and a vegetable, of course). We’re just giving the hungry public what they want, after all.

Shanghai-Style Braised Pork Belly (hong shao rou, 红烧肉), or “red cooked pork,” is a very famous dish in China. Everyone knows it, and there are many versions and twists based on the original. Some of the more well-known variations include the addition of squid (sounds odd, but boy, is it tasty), hard boiled eggs, and tofu knots (one of Sarah’s favorites. See my mother’s recipe for Hongshao Rou for this variation).

The list goes on, but since I’m from Shanghai, I like to cook the original, un-embellished Shanghai-style version. This recipe is designed for two to three people because I’m cooking for three here, but you can certainly double and/or triple the recipe for bigger crowds. You may have to adjust the cooking time accordingly. The ingredients are very simple:

Then bring a pot of water to a boil. Blanch the pork for a couple minutes. This gets rid of impurities and starts the cooking process. Take the pork out of the pot and set aside.

Over low heat, add oil and sugar to your wok. Melt the sugar slightly and add the pork. Raise the heat to medium and cook until the pork is lightly browned.

Turn the heat back down to low and add Shaoxing cooking wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and water. It’s very important to the color and flavor of this dish that you have both kinds of soy sauce! Just head to your local Asian market, buy a bottle of each, and it will last you a year!

Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until pork is fork tender. Every 5-10 minutes, stir to prevent burning and add more water if it gets too dry. Once the pork is fork tender, if there is still a lot of visible liquid, uncover the wok, turn up the heat, and stir continuously until the sauce has reduced to a glistening coating.

And then, it’s time to eat! Let us know in the comments if you’re interested in any other variations of this dish, and we’ll get right on it. (not that we’re looking for another excuse to make it or anything…)

For entertaining, get one of these clay or earthen pots to serve your Shanghai Style Braised pork Belly (hong shao rou).

Then bring a pot of water to a boil. Blanch the pork for a couple minutes. This gets rid of impurities and starts the cooking process. Take the pork out of the pot and set aside.

Over low heat, add oil and sugar to your wok. Melt the sugar slightly and add the pork. Raise the heat to medium and cook until the pork is lightly browned.

Turn the heat back down to low and add Shaoxing cooking wine, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, and water. It's very important to the color and flavor of this dish that you have both kinds of soy sauce! Just head to your local Asian market, buy a bottle of each, and it will last you a year!

Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes to 1 hour until pork is fork tender. Every 5-10 minutes, stir to prevent burning and add more water if it gets too dry. Once the pork is fork tender, if there is still a lot of visible liquid, uncover the wok, turn up the heat, and stir continuously until the sauce has reduced to a glistening coating.

Thank you for sharing such a fantastic recipe. My husband made this at the weekend. He’s doesn’t cook often but had no problems following your great recipe. He was worried that there was quite a bit of liquid left at the end and wasn’t going to bubble away to look like your photos. But after some vigorous boiling it looked just liked yours and he was so pleased. This tasted as amazing as your photos looked. This isn’t the first recipe of yours I’ve tried and it won’t be the last – love this blog!

Delicious! Made as described with just the addition of some ginger slices and a star anise (Fuschia Dunlop’s recipe). Simmered for 50 minutes partially covered but it needed an additional 35 minutes uncovered to reduce the liquid. Even though I use Pearl Ridge soy sauces, my preparation was more of a deep brown color and didn’t achieve the deep red color of your photos. Will definitely try it again. Would you add red bean curd or its juices?

This is absolutely delicious! Cooked it exactly to recipe (but used palm sugar as didn’t have any rock sugar). Was tender and deliciously balanced – salty, sweet and tart. Am impressed it was so nice given there were very few ingredients.

I really love Hui Guo Rou and have a nice piece of pork belly waiting to be prepared, but started thinking about this good looking recipe… Do you think it would work if I add some more spices to it?… I am thinking about some ginger, garlic, star anise, chili or Sichuan peppers… Thanks in advance for opinions :)

I made this tonight! Doubled the recipe (800g pork belly) but kept the sugar at less than 1 tablespoon (I am very sensitive to sweetness). It was so good over lightly sauteed Chinese cabbage and steamed rice. Only thing I would say is that it needed vigorous boiling for about 10 mins at the end to reduce the sauce to how it looks in the pics. Other than that, kudos for it being easy, short ingredients list, and more importantly, very, very tasty.

Been cooking this dish since last year and it never gets old. I just need the right ingredients and a little knowledge in the kitchen to make this dish come out right. I wish I can eat this everyday, but pork FAT is something I have to avoid, health wise. Nevertheless, this dish is very easy to prepare and very delish in my standard. Thanks for all your recipes, Judy! ?

Sounds great, and I’m keen to try the recipe, having had red pork belly in Rick Stein’s restaurant. But does your simple Shanghai recipe need three quarters of a pound of lean belly pork, or three to four pounds. (I’m not clear what “3/4” means in your recipe). Thanks.

Tried this dish tonight and it was delicious. I used a skillet and covered it was aluminum foil (was that the right idea?). I was able to reduce it but not to the syrupy consistency but cooked it for 45 minutes and the meat was tender and good.

Will definitely try this again! You know what they say, practice makes perfect!

Hi Sedem, you can use a wok, pot, or dutch oven as long as there’s a lid. Like you said, “practice makes perfect.” Please read through the recipe one more time before making another batch. I know you will get it right.

Tried this today… It tasted delicious. However, I encountered the problem that others here have and that was that I never got the red glaze. It took a long time for mine to simmer down – probably, an hour and a quarter (though this could be due to the fact that I have an ceramic stove and not gas?). It eventually browned up of course. Though, I nearly ruined it. I waited and waited… then realised I had to quickly transferred the meat out when some of the pieces over caramelised and came out hard lol. Will try again. :)

I could not help it. As I smelled this lovely dish cooking, I just had to throw in a couple slices of ginger. Thanks for another great dish…. but one I can only allow myself to cook occasionally. Alas, I love fat pork.

To my prior comment, let me add a suggestion. If using plain granulated sugar, it works better to just add this into the sauce and water mixture, rather than add it to the oil when brazing the pork. The sugar can quickly carmelize and turn to rock candy in oil that is a bit too hot. I also used part brown and part white granulated sugar, since I did not have raw rock sugar.

On my third try with this, it came out delicious–best so far. Practice helps.. I kept the flame low on the sugar, and used half brown and half white granulated sugar. Also, I used half pork stock and half water for the simmer. And I added some ginger. This really does not need much attention or stirring until those last fifteen inutes, as the water boils off, leaving the fats, oil, and sugar. Watch it closely during those last minutes! Again, thanks. It will be at least a month until I allow myself to pig out on this dish again!

Love it. I added green onions, star anise, ginger, and garlic for the braising process and it was so good when the liquid reduced. I was a little scared at first with so much liquid left but it worked out in the end.

This recipe was great. It tasted just like I remembered eating it when I lived in China. I just added some ginger, garlic, star anise and potatoes at the suggestion of my old friend who used to make it for me and it was ideal. Never though I’d be able to enjoy this in Scotland!

Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time and posting recipes. I’ve been following them all with interest. Really appreciate the effort and the delicious recipes that I’m very excited to try out!

Hi Angela, depends what ingredient in the soy your friend is allergic too. If it’s gluten (wheat), then you can use gluten free soy (some call it Tamari).

I made this last night and it was a hit, very yummy, and pork so tender. I also added star anise and ginger during boiling process, and Chinese black vinegar (as I love the black vinegar taste), and it was great.
Thanks for an easy but delicious recipe!

I had all the ingredients in my cupboard already (apart from the pork, of course) so I followed your recipe with the addition of ginger, garlic and star anise and it turned out perfectly. So quick, so easy and soooo delicious. Yum! Thank you – I’ll be making this again and again!

1) Did you skim the fat as it rendered out through the braising process? I always get this gigantic layer of transparent fat that occupies nearly the top half of where the pork is sitting.

2) What is the key to the glistening dark red-brown coating? I get that color comes with dark soy sauce, but what about that glimmering sheen? Some sources I’ve read say you must use rock sugar for that effect, but it seems like it should also be possible with plain white/brown sugar. Is it just a matter of reducing the sauce down even further? More sugar? More soy sauce? Take out the fat?

Hi Sherwin, no, I don’t skim any fat off throughout the cooking process. Regarding your question about the glistening coating, rock sugar is needed, fat is needed, and yes, reduce the sauce further until there is just enough to coat the pork. That’s when you get that nice sheen. Many of our readers have done it, and you can too! :-)

You can also add a pinch (or two if you have the taste for it) of Kashmiri Chilli Powder. Adds a superb red hue to any dish its added to which plays into your hands here and will add a good punch being a mild chilli powder without dominating.

Ps. Judy – I have used this recipe several times. I favored it so much I used it as the center piece when I cooked for 15 of my colleagues at work. Also served them some a Wood Ear Mushroom Salad, Rainbow noodle salad from your site and also some adapted recipes for Crispy Chilli Beef and Duck with Plum Sauce.

I made this dish today and it was so good I cleaned the spoon and pan with my tongue. Nuff said.

One question however…I do not have a wok so I used a skillet and the simmering took me 2 hours and even then there was half the liquid left. I turned it to high and boiled off the rest. My question is should I take it a little past simmer or just deal with the longer cook time due to using a skillet instead of a wok?

There is nothing wrong with using the skillet. How was the texture of the meat after 2 hours of simmering? Feel free to reduce the amount of liquid if the pork has became too soft after cooking for 2 hours.

I loved this dish back when I lived in Yunnan, but the most lovely versions, I thought, were always those with lean beef – hongshao niurou. Could I follow this recipe but just replace the pork with beef, or should I look for another recipe for that?

Hi Natsymir, beef takes much longer to cook, so you will need another recipe with adjusted cooking time, try my braised oxtail recipe for the hongshaoniurou and replace the oxtail with chunk roast. You will love it.

Tried this dish earlier and it was super duper amazing! my fiance was like “omg what’s cooking? it smells darn good I feel like eating now!” and that was when I just started simmering the pork! hahaha. thanks for sharing these amazing recipe dish!

Yup, that was REAL good! Totally spot on from the post earlier when you advised to turn up the heat after the pork is done simmering, took another seven or so minutes with the lid off, but didn’t seem to toughen the meat at all. Also, I made it in a large cast iron skillet and everything was fine.

Paired mine with sautéed baby bok choy, bean sprouts, and a bit of cauliflower rice with some chopped basil and cilantro tossed in — freaking outstanding! I’m so glad I found your site and I can’t wait to try out more of our dishes, starting with your mom’s version of this dish.

Tried this recipe for today’s dinner. My sauce turned out more brown than reddish and it also didn’t thicken as much as it looked in the pictures. The pork belly still turned out pretty good taste-wise.

My girlfriend taught me to cook this dish but some additional spices, and in a lot more water (more like a stew I suppose).

We bought a small “infuser” (a small metal egg with holes in it) into which I put brown pepper and star anise. I also add a bit of cinnamon stick and about one dried chili for every pork belly strip.

I do also add some large bits of ginger (which I “bash” to open it up and bring the flavour out) and about one garlic clove per belly strip, as well as some spring onions.

The flavour of this dish is amazing. If you have some left over, a fantastic breakfast treat (especially on a cold day) is to cut the pork up really finely and have it with some finely chopped chili and coriander, warmed up in a pitta bread or a soft tortilla.

I am making this dish right now, it’s 11:47 am in NY but I am cooking it now to have it for dinner later. I can’t wait to try it: yesterday I made the Chicken Adobo you guys posted and it was delicious. I will be serving the braised pork belly with white rice, steamed broccoli on the side and a salad of cucumbers, shredded lettuce and diced tomato. Thank you for another awesome recipe, this family rocks!!!

I ate like there was no tomorrow, I ate so much that I ended up having to take a nap after LOL!!. I felt like I was going to pass out. This was so delicious, the skin/meat combo melts in your mouth. Thank you and your family for this blog. I found you guys through a Google search, glad I did. :) P.S. the pictures, the step by step details and the great story that goes along with each recipe are a plus.

I moved to Shenzhen from Canada three months ago and sorely missed my mom’s cooking. I took it upon myself this weekend to make this dish. It turned out so much better than I thought! I tweaked the recipe, removing the light soy sauce, and adding ginger and bay leaves. I even showed a picture to my mom and she was impressed. Thanks for the recipe! Will be making it again for sure.

Oonagh, so sorry to hear that! Just wondering how and where it went wrong. It’s the #1 dish in Shanghai and I have to point out that Shanghainese are picky eaters which says a lot for this dish. With so many successes from other readers, are you sure you don’t want to try again?

Hi there, if I use double the amount or more of the pork belly do I also double all the ingredients as well as the cooking time on boiling and simmering? Also, I do not have Shaoxing wine but I have Michiu cooking wine, can I use this instead?

Hi Ester, you can definitely use Michiu cooking wine. When doubling the recipe, double the ingredients, but not the boiling time. The simmering time shouldn’t vary too much either if any. You be the judge, check periodically and adjust accordingly.

I have tried this recipe a couple of times now & I love it! I only found out the name through a food program & realised that my mom had cooked the dish for me before but never told me the name. I was so surprised! I adore this dish & I’ve cooked it for a couple of my friends who love it as well.

Hi JP, thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate the tip about the pressure cooker. I need to get up the courage to cook with a pressure cooker. I have a really nice one given to me by an Indian friend (he cooks with pressure cookers often to make curries and stews in very short timeframes!), and it’s still sitting in its original package :-(

Hi Judy, I’ve cooked this a number of times for my family and everyone loves it. Here in the UK, its easy to buy Pork Belly strips. These are ‘rashers’ about an inch or so thick, and so easy to prepare into the required ‘chunks’. However it has the hard skin removed, leaving the succulent fat. Is this ‘forbidden’ as you imply above as I can’t eat rubbery belly skin and so far everyone has given this recipe the thumbs up. Incidentally once I’ve located a multi blade tenderiser, I’m about to try the siu yuk as this is one of my favourites.

Hi Mark, it’s best to have skin on the pork belly. The skin turns gelatinous and definitely not rubbery. But with Siu yuk, you will have to buy pork belly with skin on. I think a chat with your butcher is in order :-)

Awesome! So it is sweet. One thing I’d like to ask though: Would this taste better or be more soft/juicy when cooked in a unglazed clay pot? I read online that food tastes better generally when cooked in a clay pot, so I was wondering if it applies to this dish.

I came here after buying a pack of Costco pork belly and didn’t know what to do with thick strips. This recipe worked out perfectly since I had everything in my pantry! Question: do you notice a difference between parboiling and not in the finished product?

I usually buy my pork belly from the local asian market, but since I always have a hard time getting my husband to drive me over the river and through the woods to get there I picked up some pork belly at Costco. It wasn’t the single slab I was used to, but rather long thick inch-and-a-half wide strips. I was so excited to find belly at Costco that I hadn’t thought of what to do with it. When I got it home I was completely stumped. I’m used to roasting a whole hunk of the stuff. Then I remembered a picture I’d saved in the depths of my Pinterest. A picture of a beautiful earthen bowl piled high with glistening pork belly. I scrolled through my ridiculously unorganized recipe feed to find it and boom. This was the answer to what to do with these strips of pork.

Thanks you for this grand recipe, it was spectacular and ridiculously easy. Way too easy for something that is so rich it should be saved for special occasions. I made it twice this week! Naughty.

As a footnote to help others, I’d like to just say that the first time I made it I was far too concerned with getting every last drop of liquid to reduce. This resulted in tasty but far too dark/nearly-but-not-quite-burned pork. Edible, but not pretty. Last night I cooked it for exactly 45 minutes then took the top off and eyeballed it till it looked just like the picture. There was still a fair amount of thick syrupy liquid left in my wok, but I fished the meat out and it was gorgeous. As a non-trad addition, I tossed in a little bit of widely chopped onion and wow do they cook down and caramelize nicely.

Served on white rice with a side of sauteed flowering chives. Amazing dinner! Amazing recipe!

I’m so excited to find this recipe! When we lived in Michigan we used to drive to the Detroit side of town for shops they didn’t have on the west side. My oldest son and I would spend a few days shopping and loved eating at all the great Chinese and Japanese restaurants near the Canton area.

We ordered the pork belly and what they called bow ties (the interwebs seem to call the tofu skin knots instead of bow ties?) 6 years ago at a highly reviewed restaurant with an extensive traditional Chinese menu. It goes down in history as one of my son’s favorite dishes ever of all time ever ever ever. We just moved to Denver, and while Denver has many wonderful Chinese restaurants (I finally got to try scallion pancakes, and we have several options for xiao long bao, YAY!!!!) I have never found pork belly with tofu skin.

Trust me, he looks. Every.single.time.

I finally decided to check google, and your pictures looked exactly like what we had in the Detroit area.

My son absolutely loves the tofu skin though. I was wondering what kind of preparation that tofu knots require? When would you add them?

And what veggie do you generally serve with this? Or two even? Would simple stir fried baby bok choi be out of place? Any other suggestion?

My poor boyo had been waiting 6 years to have it again, you have given such great instructions, I’m confident I could do it for him.

Hi Crystal, you can buy the tofu knots in the tofu section and sometimes in the freezer section. There is no special preparation needed, just add them about 1/2 way through the simmering time. Like you said, a great stir-fry green along with some rice are perfect to serve with this savory dish.

Hey Phil, I’m sure the Real Bloggers shall respond shortly. They changed the site recently and it looks like comments have disappeared ! Including mine! I was always paranoid about using the skin – NO you do not have to remove it, it blends into the meat as it braises. (And screw you autocorrect for not knowing what the word braise means!!) This was mind boggling good when I made it before. Making tonight w some diced pork butt and even throwing in some veggies (that makes it a salad, right?) This is one you shall treasure forever. Go for it! Best blog ever!!!

Hi Toni jean, There were so many comments on this post and others that we configured the most recent page of comments to be shown first and you can page through the comments at the bottom using the links “older comments” and “newer comments”. We’re working to try to make those links easier to see!

Love, love, love this fabulous recipe and my biggest problem is not overdoing it from the frequency point of view! I agree with everyone else, a leaner belly pork is best, a very fatty pork belly really doesn’t work and is hugely disappointing. I add little garlic (I’m addicted) and Star Anise….. really yum :-)

Made this as part of a multi course woks of life birthday dinner for myself last night. Wow! This is an amazing recipe! Because there were other things to cook, I moved it to a baking pan after brought to a simmer and put in a 325 oven. After an hour I uncovered to reduce. When everything else was ready, I heated briefly in the work for the final shiny glaze. Phenomenal!!

Have to say that this recipe is excellent. Have bought all the ingredients from a Chinese supermarket, so we have the authentic flavours and they are delicious. The belly pork just melts in the mouth and is so sweet that we could eat it every day. Thank you so much for this recipe.

I have cooked it three times in the last three weeks – it is a firm family favourite already! As noted by other commenters, the dish does work better with leaner pork belly, a very fatty cut and the pork fat flavour can overwhelm the dish. The third time I made the dish, I doubled the quantities of Shaoxing wine and the two soy sauces, and added only one and a half cups of water. It gave a stronger, richer flavour to the glaze/sauce that counter-acted the fatty pork belly.

Just returned home after purchasing a whole sheet of belly pork from my local Spanish butcher. WE also watched Rick Stein and being inspired by the food we found you and your lovely receipe on Google. Thank you. This is now going to be our dinner party supper tomorrow. X

excellent dish, although i am keen on pork belly i just found it a bit fatty, it could be the quality of the pork i got from the supermarket it was overly fatty but its all they had. i tried this with pork chops cut into strips and it was really good… thanks for sharing the recipe ;)

It reminded me so much of a dish some street vendors sell in Chiang Mai Thailand, different from the braised pork curry, Gaeng Hang Lay or Chiang Mai Pork Curry the city is known for and far closer to this dish. Had to cook it and went looking for the recipe and hit on this page. Absolutely delicious, Thank you and I hope you get a chance to see the documentary!
Nitsa

Nitsa,I saw the Rick Stein programme. I was blown away by the food in Shanghai. I just had to have a go at making the braised pork belly. Just finished eating it there,it was possibly the most delicious piece of pork I have eaten. Absolutely divine!! This recipe is soooooooo simple yet just fantastic to taste!!

Hi Nitsa, yes, we have seen the show on YouTube. Thanks to Rick Stein, Hong Shao Rou is becoming popular in UK. Many readers have found us (like yourself) while looking for this recipe. You might want to look into many of our excellent recipes for dishes from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sichuan and Hunan.

Family has just finished all the dish and wanted more!! Huge success thanks, only thing at the end of cooking I did have a lot of oil in the wok, did I use to much ? As I cooked more pork I just multiplyed the ingredients all x3 was this right?

Hi Richard, you did more than fine! The oil is from the pork fat. If you don’t mind the fat, save it and use it in noodle dishes like our You Po Mian and Scallion Soy Noodles. Pork fat really adds the ultimate flavor to a dish, especially noodle dishes.

Hi Susie, Judy adds dark soy sauce to her recipe which I think is really good but many recipes don’t, and the color of the lighter soy sauce gives the dish a red tint rather than the rich dark color you see in the this recipe. Check out the Cantonese pork Belly with arrowroot which uses red fermented bean curd––now that is red! Another example is Sarah’s Chicken Adobo which uses light soy sauce and also has a red tint – go figure. :)

I haven’t tried any recipes for braised dishes, yet, and this might be my first, since none of the 20+ Chinese restaurants in the small suburban S.F. Bay Area city in which I live serves this. Since it’s braising, would this also be a good opportunity to get a pork master stock going?

I figured out that the liquid wouldn’t work for saving when the thickening part came around. I was wondering why my pork belly didn’t look like the picture, then thickening, and voila! It turned out great, just as juicy tender as described on the Adam Eats Bingo Challenge. Thanks for the recipe!

My local chinese restaurant used to make something very similar and it was my absolute favourite, then it changed owners and was no longer available … I almost cried! I have been searching for a recipe to make this for the last two years and now, at last I’ve found it. Thank you, thank you, thank you ?

Hi, I’ve been trying to cook this but the result my cooking is not red. I use both light and dark soy sauce but I don’t see any sign of redness in my cooking. What makes the braised pork is red actually?
Also is this cooking supposed to be sweet?

Hi Zelig, I used Pearl River Dark Soy Sauce. I think its color is “richer”, but then again, the color of this dish is not as important as taste. And yes, this dish is mildly sweet. You can adjust the sweetness accordingly to your own liking.

Finally made this tonight (though I’ve been ogling it for weeks). Hilarious!!! I think I’ll have to change my screen name to Laurel&HardyofChinesecooking. If I had a video you would all laugh your arses off.

Nonetheless, when all was said and done, it looked just like the pics and was the BEST thing ever!!! I couldn’t stop snitching pieces while the bok choy stir fried. I can’t wait to make it again, especially with a little experience under my belt.

Wow I’m impressed! I’m a Taiwanese-Hongkonger, studying in Wisconsin, and being that my city somewhat lacks authentic Chinese food, I have to learn how to make dishes myself. I tried making something similar to this (Taiwanese Lu Rou Fan), according to my Grandma’s directions, but it was an utter disaster. Since then, I’ve shied away from braising meats, until I found a great deal on pork belly at Costco, and decided to give pork belly another try! This recipe was easy, didn’t require many ingredients and turned out beautifully.

I used mirin instead of Shaoxing wine, because I threw my bottle of shaoxing away after the first fiasco and didn’t want to buy another one if I was unsure of how this attempt was going to turn out. I definitely think that in the future, I will use Shaoxing for more of an authentic taste. I also added two star anise, and a dash of Chinese 5 spice powder. Will absolutely make again!!

i am English and i served this dish to some Chinese friends (it was only my second time cooking your recipe). They know this dish so well from their childhood days in China and i was a bit worried it would not live up to their expectations! They loved it!! They were amazed it was only the second time i had cooked it as they said some people in China after years of trying never get it as good as i cooked it! They were impressed with the rich dark colour i achieved and the meat was totally tender and simply delicious. An adjustment i made to the recipe was to cook the meat on barely a simmer for 2 hours (perhaps US belly pork is more tender than European??). There is a critical period where the remains of the liquid is boiling off and the sauce very quickly went shiny sticky and a wonderful nutty brown! Right before this happens, the colour does not look good, the sauce is watery and thin and it looks plain wrong….but in the last few moments it’s amazing how it changes so quickly to a stunning restaurant quality dish! Needless to say, my Chinese friends want to know when i will next cook dinner for them!! Thank you for the recipe and i will be trying other recipes of yours! Next challenge for me is making dumplings from scratch! :-)

Made this last night, and my family and I love it. I put it on my ramen today, and again, I love it. Thanks for the step by steps and yes, it was perfect for our home cooking, clean eating after all the rich foods of the week.

Hi Simon, For an authentic result, you really do need to use pork belly with the skin on. Try the authentic dish first and then you can vary later (skin off, other cuts of meat, etc) and decide what you like best. We’d love to hear from you about your experiences in the future. Enjoy!

Hi Marie, I think it should work. I don’t cook with a slow cooker so I don’t know how to adjust the cooking time accordingly. If you give it a try, we would appreciate it if you could share the outcome with our readers here in the comments. Thank you, Marie!

Hey Judy & Marie, I have tried doing this in a slow cooker before. I don’t really like the texture because if you leave it to braise for the whole day, the texture of the pork is too soft and tends to just break apart. But if you braise it the way Judy said, then the pork is tender as well as firm enough to enjoy.

My husband is originally from Shanghai and has sorely missed his mothers cooking. One of her specialties is the red braised pork but she also adds soft sweet roasted chestnuts. So let me just say, this recipes was easy and made the Mr. incredibly happy! I’m next going to try your grandmothers recipe with the tofu! Thank you

Wow. Love the simple ingredients for this recipe and it turned out so well!! Tastes similar to a very authentic restaurant dish. It’s so rare to find a site these days with simple ingredients, all other recipes call for all sorts of unnecessary things but this truly works.

It’s funny, my mom made very similar to this version and my grandmother made it like your grandmother’s recipe. I’ve been making this one since I stumbled on your blog a few months ago and my Luxembourgian husband is a devoted convert! (Took me a long time to convince him that “real” Chinese food isn’t what he’s been getting in take outs…). I’ve been seeing lots of recipes that bring me back to my grandmother’s kitchen. Thanks for posting!

mmmm this reminds me of my childhood – my mom’s version has large chunks of carrots added in – the meat juices + the sauce makes the carrots seem like the best vegetable in the world. so happy i stumbled upon this site!

Hi Sammi, I don’t want to give you bad advice. The characteristic of this dish comes from braising using both the light and the dark soy sauce. I think you should hold off and ask your supermarket to get you the right soy sauce. I don’t want to see you miss out on an awesome dish because of missing ingredients. Hope you understand!

Thank you for the recipe, I tried it yesterday for the first time and it was delicious. I was worried, that 2 cups of water could be to much for this rather small ammount of meat, but after 45 minutes, when there still was much liquid in the wok, I turned on high heat and it didn’t took much time for the liquid to cook in and become a very thick and very tasty coat on the pork belly.

I put a few slices of ginger into the wok, so there was a hint of ginger spice in it, which suited fine. Next time, I think I will try how it comes out, when I put a small ammount of grinded szechuan pepper on the pork belly, when it’s done. I think this could suit fine as well.

Oh My Goodness! I think I will be making this for our Grand Prix party next month! It . . . looks . . . soooooo . . . good!! I could eat this right now. Thank you for inspiring me to try something new :)

I just found your amazing website with all the delicious recipes. I know the pork belly dish from my favourite chinese restaurant and they have tea tree mushrooms in there. The only think I know is that you have to soak them in water for 30 minutes. Can you tell me when is the best time to add them in that dish?

Hi Max, so glad that you’ve found us. Adding Tea Tree Mushroom 茶树菇 is a variation of Hong Shao Rou, I’m sure it tastes great. You can add it around half-time and adjust the taste by adding more light soy sauce. If you don’t mind, I would like you to try my recipe first and see if you like the authentic Hong Shao Rou better. Cheers and come visit often!

Hi Rachel, I’ve read that Tamari is a soy sauce without (or with very little) gluten, a byproduct of miso. I’ve never used it before. But certainly worth a try and remember to adjust the saltiness accordingly. Also, you might not get that dark soy color at the end. There is a way you can try to achieve a similar look: Blanch the pork belly pieces to get rid of impurities. Heat oil in wok using low heat, melt the sugar, and add the Tamari. Cook it with the sugar and oil for a couple of a couple minutes using low heat (it should not bubble too much, which will cause too much liquid to evaporate). Add the blanched pork belly and turn up the heat. Mix everything well, add shaoxing wine (or rice wine) and water and follow the recipe for the rest of steps. I am curious to know the outcome if you decide to try. I’m pretty sure it’ll be very good.

The pork belly piece that I have has a lot of hair on it still. I don’t have a torch but usually just try scraping it off with a sharp knife after blanching it. I also don’t have any extra razors, lol. What do you do to make sure you don’t have a bunch of hairs in your pork belly? :)

HAHAHA. OMG. The hairy pork belly scenario. I’m familiar, Lily. Very familiar. In general, I would try to buy from a butcher that does a more thorough job of getting their meat ready for market. If it’s just a few uh…hairs (wow, this sounds a little barbaric, doesn’t it?), I just grab the tweezers and go at those suckers. Vegetarians: forgive me. Everyone else: yeah, it’s gross. Deal with it.

Hi Grace, Shaoxing cooking wine is really kind of a necessary ingredient for this dish, since it’s so simple and involves relatively few ingredients. You can try finding it online on Amazon. If you REALLY can’t find it, I know that some grocery stores stock regular “rice wine” or mirin, which is a Japanese rice wine. You could try substituting those.

Found this site and great recipe today during my hunt for awesome pork belly recipes!
I come from Hong Kong so I had plenty of chances to try this dish at a restaurant before, but this is the first time I made it. Pleasantly surprised it tastes so good!

Just not sure why though mine doesn’t turn out as shiny and red as shown in your result pictures.

Hi, Alfred, there are a few things you can do to get the finished product looking shiny and red: 1) dissolve the sugar (best to use rock sugar) in oil using low heat before adding the pork to the wok. 2) At the end, the sauce needs to be mostly dried out by continuously stirring over medium to high heat; it’s done when the sauce coats the pork, and what’s left in the wok is mostly grease. 3) Adjust the amount of dark soy sauce, more or less depending on what color you want. Hope these tips are helpful. :-)

This is an awesome, simple, recipe! faster than a lot of the pork belly recipes I looked at and delicious, I was hampered by an electric stove but it still turned out great! Right at the end of cooking all of the glaze wrapped itself around the pork, this left separate oil/fat in the pan I just lifted it out with a slotted spoon, looked just like the pics but a little darker!
Oh yeah your the second result on Google here in the UK, thanks again!

A firm fan of this recipe, in Barcelona! Some ingredients are difficult to get hold of here, unfortunately. I’m forced to use medium dry Sherry and only darker soy sauce so the color is never exactly like your pictures. But it’s delicious all the same. Having it for Monday night dinner.

Hi B.J.S.K,
Google has been recommending this recipe down under :) I’m in New Zealand too and can’t wait to try your recipe tomorrow! I am trying to be healthy and I like how your recipe doesn’t involve lots of rock sugar! Even though I was born in Shanghai and love the food, I’m only fond of excessive sugar in my desserts! :)
P.s. your blog is inspiring!

Hi, Catherine, nice to meet a hometown girl. Thank you for your lovely words. I know how a nice bowl of Hong Shao Rou can bring us back to the old days and the old ways of living. Not to say that they were “the good old days”, but certainly hard to forget. Please come and visit us often! I know I will put out more Shanghainese dishes.

Found your site through google after a lady from work suggested I try your pork belly recipe. Cooked it last night and WOW!!! Added some chilli and onions 1/2 way through cooking and it totally lifted it. Tonight we are going to try the Gai see chow mein. Love finding authenticate asian recipes!! Keep up the good work girls! Reading daily through your site all the way from New Zealand

Hi, Wendy, a big HELLO to you in New Zealand. We’ll have to make our way there some day. Words can’t describe how happy we are to see our readers are making and enjoying our recipes. We’ll keep on posting and you’ll keep on cooking! BTW, how was the Gai See Chow Mein?

Hi, Pono, the sauce should be reduced but don’t dry it out. As a last step (of cooking), stir uncovered and the sauce will reduce quickly. You will get that lovely sheen as shown in the pictures. Let us know how it turns out!

Hi, James, I don’t want to assume anything, but if you used pork belly, you should not have this problem. Only when the meat is too lean will the meat get tough. How long did you cook it for? The longer the better! But shoot us a reply and we’ll give you some extra advice :)

Hey Judy thanks for your reply! I think i did indeed picked a leaner cut of meat, so there was not much fat at all, because my flatmates wanted something “healthier” haha, and it was cooked for an hour or so! Coming to think about it, the end product was not as “shiny” as yours! :D

Hi, James, tell your flatmates that you will be “unhealthier” for just this once because it’s so damn worth it. Get a large piece of pork belly (pick a piece with more meat than fat), follow the recipe, and you will have a DELIGHTFUL meal.

Yes I will do that next time! Regarding marination of the meat, I have actually tried to marinate the meat, and skipping the first step of boiling the meat (I mean, if the marinated meat is going to be boiled, then isnt it counter productive?), i think it has slightly more taste in the middle of the meat. (will try it again with a fattier cut just to be sure)

Hence sorry for my silly question, but what purpose does boiling the meat actually serve? are we blanching out the “impurities” which are actually giving it more taste?

Hi, James, some old habits are hard to change, I’ve learned the “pre-boiling the meat” method from my grandmother, this step is not critical, you can just start by browning the meat. Hope you have better luck next time.

Great recipe! One thing I found helpful was to add a little bit salt during the browning process, or even marinate it with salt and a little bit of cooking wine to allow the meat to absorb some flavor before cooking.

This sounds great and I’m going to give it a go. Pork belly is hot right now everywhere – probably a result of the whole bacon-love thing. Bacon is cured and smoked (often) pork belly. I’ll probably substitute pork shoulder – much easier to find and perhaps a little leaner than the belly. I did just a laugh about the first item – lean pork belly is sort of an oxymoron.

Hi, Dahveed, pork shoulder is a great alternative. A small tip: if you are interested in trying this recipe with fresh pork belly, you can call the store (where you buy your meats) and order ahead of time. Usually the store’s butcher is more than happy to take orders.

The photos have be drooling! Your recipe is easier than others I’ve seen. Can’t wait to try it. One constructive comment: in the instructions it looks like it says to cut the pork into 1/4″ cubes. It’s only after I increased the font size that I realized you’re saying 3/4″ cubes.

Thanks for this great recipe. I’m an American living and working in China, and I have been wanting to learn to make this. It’s perfect. And it even works with leaner cuts of meat (for us borderline health nuts). Another variation I like is to take the leftovers (I cook larger portions to last a few days and in the freezer), stir-fry with a bowl of white rice and button mushrooms chopped up. The mushrooms soak up the fat/flavor and make the dish go longer. Again，吓吓侬！

Just got back from Shanghai and had dinner with friends at an old house that was turned into a restaurant. This dish was served, and my host was very proud to pour some excellent Amarone wine. There are not a lot of Chinese dishes that can stand up to that big red, but this one did it! Thanks for your website and this recipe!